


Less than Strangers

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Au of a fanfic, Boy-Who-Lived Neville Longbottom, F/M, James Potter Lives (and actually gets to grow old), Lily Evans Potter Lives, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Severitus | Severus Snape is Harry Potter's Parent, Slice of Life, Vague hints at smut between James and Barty, fathers and sons, mentions of past infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29540850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: James Potter did not expect growing up this would be his life: one with a husband, a distant son, an ex-wife and her husband, but it was the one he had.When he wasn’t watching Harry had become nearly a man, but he desperately wishes to try and repair their relationship.The choices we make affect not only ourselves.
Relationships: Bartemius Crouch Jr./James Potter, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28
Collections: Love Fest 2021





	Less than Strangers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zorak23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zorak23/gifts).



> Thank you https://archiveofourown.org/users/meditations emergencies for betaing this 
> 
> And thank you Zorak23 for letting muse go where it wanted to go. 
> 
> This is a AU of Taking the Low Road with the premise it was Neville who was the boy who lived. Lily and James divorcing when Harry was quite young.

Regret was something that James Potter wore like a cloak. It clung to him, saturating every part of his life. The choices he had made years ago had led to it. They were why his son barely spoke to him, why his friends seemed to keep him at a distance, and why his ex-wife hated him. 

Our choices define our lives. Each step we take leads us further down the path that we call life. If someone did not take one, then there would not be the one that followed. 

A lifetime ago he had married Lily Evans, who at the time, he would have told you was a perfect person. He had chased after her, as if she was a prize to be won. He had done his very best to earn her love in the end, but when it was said and done, he had stomped on it. 

When he looked back with the clarity of time? _ He had been a gay man pretending to be straight because it was easier than being who he truly was. He was the one who had... _

Barty’s arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him close, “You are thinking so loud, Jamie, I might as well be able to hear your thoughts.” 

“Sorry,” he sighed softly. “I just get locked in my head at times.”

“You are worrying about tomorrow, aren’t you?” His husband asked, running a hand over his hip. 

“Harry is your son, and nothing, not even him being a bloody teenager, is ever going to change that fact. If he’s anything like we were, he thinks the whole world is against him, and he’s gotta stand up against it for the sake of it all.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” James questioned, flipping over to lay on his back. He stared up at the ceiling of their bedroom and crossed his arms behind his head. “Or is it an assumption?”

“You of all people, Potter, should know,” Barty teased, he ran a finger down James’ bare chest, tracing patterns as he did. “You were far worse than I was.” 

“No, I wasn’t,” he said smiling. “And it’s Mr. Potter to you, Mr. Potter.” 

James set aside the thoughts of the future, and he lost himself in this moment. Tomorrow could be worried about tomorrow, and it didn’t matter now. 

“Shall I remind you?” The other man laughed, pulling James in for a kiss. Their mouths met in the darkness. It had been seventeen years since they had found each other and yet it felt like yesterday. Barty was on top of him now, pulling away to tug off his nightshirt. Their cocks brushed against one another, sending sparks over his skin. 

James wanted this man; the feeling was an all-consuming fire that had taken up residence in soul. It was like an uncontrollable beast. It was everything, and thankfully his husband felt the same. Barty kissed his neck and then slipped his fingers inside his boxers, taking hold of his cock. 

“Fuck,” he hissed through gritted teeth. 

“Hold your bloody hippogriffs, we aren’t there yet,” Barty snapped, placing a thumb on James’ bottom lip, though he laughed after a moment. “But we will be there soon.” 

James pulled him closer and they lost themselves in each other's bodies. It was a dance that they both knew all too well. 

*******

James heard a knock at the door; three harsh loud knocks that echoed through his skull. He sighed softly and made his way to the door already knowing the people he would face once he got there. Barty was in the kitchen, making breakfast and the smell of bacon filled the air. Five short strides and he was there. Harry hated the floo and for various reasons their wards did not allow anyone to apparate directly into their living room. Just like Snape, there were people on both sides who would like his husband’s head on a platter. He found himself wasting time instead of just getting on with it. There was another sharp rasp of knuckles against the door. 

_ ‘Get on with it, Potter,’  _ his mind snapped.  _ ‘You have been dealing with him for years, and this is no different.’ _

He reached out grasping the brass doorknob and opened it. The two of them stood on his front step, both of their faces were rather displeased, but they looked quite different. Snape was dressed in black head to toe still in robes from Hogwarts not bothering even to pretend to be a Muggle, too-long hair tied back at the nape of his neck, and a pale hand was resting on Harry’s shoulder. 

His son, however, made him feel like he was looking into a mirror, one that was a window to the past. The boy who had, when he was not watching, nearly become a man. His eyes ruined the picture; they were bright green, as haunted and angry as Lily’s had been the last time he had seen her. He wore Slytherin robes and a sour expression. 

“What took you so long?” Severus questioned, staring down at the watch on his left wrist. “Lily needs help with the twins, and we confirmed the time by owl three days ago.”

“Snape, maybe I simply enjoy wasting your time.” 

The professor turned, ignoring him once more, facing the boy who tied the two families together. “I will be here in two weeks, if you need your mother or me sooner send Hedwig or fire call, okay?”

“I will, Dad, and tell Mum and the twins I love them, okay?”

The two of them hugged, and the sight turned James’ stomach. Then the other man turned on a heel and walked down the street, surely looking for an alley to Apparate to his own home and family.

“Come on inside, Harry.”

“Hello, Father, have you been well?” His voice was far more formal than it had been with his step-father.

“I have. You?”

“Yes, I earned all Os this year.”

They were inside the sitting room now and Harry set aside his belongings. He stripped off his robes and untucked his white shirt. His robes were folded and laid on top of his things. Father and son stared at one another. There might as well have been a wall between them keeping them separate from one another. Barty stayed away, but his soft humming of some Scottish song possibly even cut through the silence that either of the Potters were unwilling to break. 

“Would you like to play chess?” James asked, “Did I ever tell you my father was the one who taught me to play when I was younger than you are now?”

“You did, and I know you were six or something when he did, weren’t you? And yes, I would like to play.” 

James dug around in a cabinet in the corner of the room, finding his own set quickly. The leather-bound case was smooth with time and age. He did not wait for his son to follow him, setting it on the dining room table and opened it up. This had been his father’s chess set and he hoped to pass it along to Harry one day. He set up the board and his son took his seat across from him, having taken off his tie and set it aside. 

“Which colour would you like to play as?” He asked. 

“Black,” Harry said. “They like me better than the white, and they argued with me less last time we played.” 

“My experience has always been the opposite, but my father always played as them when we played… I was always desperate to go first.”

“Dad… I mean, Severus always says it’s best to let your opponent make the first move, they tend to be self-confident and leave an opening for you.”

James took his seat and then moved one of his pawns, not bothering to pay attention to which one he was. “You can call him whatever you prefer, Harry. I don’t mind. He’s your step-father, and I understand that.”

“Why did you cheat on mum?” Harry questioned. 

“It’s complicated,” he sighed.

“No, it’s not,” his son growled. “You just want it to be, but it’s not.”

James looked over at Barty who was standing in the doorway, watching them quietly.

“You will understand when you’re older.” 

Harry moved a pawn harshly slamming it against the board, “I am older,  _ father, _ and you know what I did? I broke up with Daphne when I realised I liked Theo more. When I realised I liked men more. It’s not that hard you just were ashamed, and mum was the one who paid for it!”

James realised that his only son might as well be a stranger to him, that they were as distant as two people could be and yet the very thought broke him. “I am sorry.”

“So am I,” Harry said, softening. “I know you love him and he loves you. I know you two aren’t monsters, but Dad? You don’t know me and I don’t know you, and you're the only one to blame for that.” 

“I want to get to know you, Harry.”

“And I want to get to know you too, Dad.”

James decided that he would be honest with his son, but to do that he had to start from the beginning, Harry was finally old enough to hear it. It was a long story, but if he didn’t start, he would never finish it. Maybe then they wouldn’t be strangers anymore. 


End file.
